The recent transformations in the USSR are nowhere more evident than in the Soviet military. Top-level military officers have been relieved of their positions, Gorbachev has warned of lean times for the military, the symbolic role of the armed forces has been downgraded, and the concept of "military sufficiency" points to major modifications in Soviet force structure. Contrary to some who see Gorbachev as a Sir Galahad out to slay the evil military high command, Dale Herspring concludes that the relationship between the highest Soviet political and military leaders is at the moment more symbiotic than conflictual. In this first in-depth study of the evolution of civil-military relations in the Soviet Union from 1967 to the present, he shows how the views of senior military officers have varied over time: currently, even if the members of the high command do not like all Gorbachev's changes, they understand the need for them and are prepared to live with them. As Herspring looks at the personalities and politics of eight top military figures, he reveals that the most important of them, Ogarkov, was the first senior Soviet military officer to understand the value of working with the political leadership. Ogarkov believed that the arms control and dtente processes, if carefully managed, could enhance the national security of the USSR. In Gorbachev, the Soviet military has found the type of individual that Ogarkov was seeking. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Here is a sober consideration of the relationship between war and economics as reflected in the history of economic thought of the 19th century. It is divided into three parts: the first examines the ideas of the classical school on the economic causes and consequences of war. The conceptions of Malthus, Ricardo, the Mills, as well as those of Say, Bastiat and Molinari, are analyzed and discussed. The second part is devoted to the study of Friedrich List, the German historical school and the partisans of the historical method outside Germany. The third deals with socialism. Saint-Simonism, Owenism, Fourierism and historical materialism are examined. A special chapter is given over to Marx and Engels. The study will be helpful not only to economists but to sociologists and historians, as well as to the general reader interested in the development of Western thought. Originally published in 1946. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"As I am ingaged in this glories Cause I am will to go whare I am Called"-so Joseph Hodgkins, a shoemaker of Ipswich, Massachusetts, declared to his wife the purpose that sustained him through four crucial years of the American Revolution. Hodgkins and his fellow townsman Nathaniel Wade, a carpenter, turned out for the Lexington alarm, fought at Bunker Hill, retreated from Long Island past White Plains, attacked at Trenton and Princeton, and enjoyed triumph at Saratoga. One of them wintered at Valley Forge, and the other was promoted to command at West Point on the night that Benedict Arnold was revealed as a traitor. On countless nights of his long march Hodgkins wrote to his wife of his adventures, his fears and hopes; and she replied with homely details of family life in a wartime New England village. The letters that survive from the exchange, printed here as an appendix to the text, are a principal source for this intimate history of two company officers in Washington's army. This Glorious Cause is a heartwarming and stirring book, illuminating a significant part of our national experience and adding to our knowledge of why thousands of unknown patriots fought, how they fought, and what it meant to fight. Originally published in 1958. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In this magnificent synthesis of military, technological, and social history, William H. McNeill explores a whole millennium of human upheaval and traces the path by which we have arrived at the frightening dilemmas that now confront us. McNeill moves with equal mastery from the crossbow--banned by the Church in 1139 as too lethal for Christians to use against one another--to the nuclear missile, from the sociological consequences of drill in the seventeenth century to the emergence of the military-industrial complex in the twentieth. His central argument is that a commercial transformation of world society in the eleventh century caused military activity to respond increasingly to market forces as well as to the commands of rulers. Only in our own time, suggests McNeill, are command economies replacing the market control of large-scale human effort. The Pursuit of Power does not solve the problems of the present, but its discoveries, hypotheses, and sheer breadth of learning do offer a perspective on our current fears and, as McNeill hopes, "a ground for wiser action."
"No summary can do justice to McNeill's intricate, encyclopedic treatment. . . . McNeill's erudition is stunning, as he moves easily from European to Chinese and Islamic cultures and from military and technological to socio-economic and political developments. The result is a grand synthesis of sweeping proportions and interdisciplinary character that tells us almost as much about the history of butter as the history of guns. . . . McNeill's larger accomplishment is to remind us that all humankind has a shared past and, particularly with regard to its choice of weapons and warfare, a shared stake in thefuture."--Stuart Rochester, "Washington Post Book World"
"Mr. McNeill's comprehensiveness and sensitivity do for the reader what Henry James said that Turgenev's conversation did for him: they suggest 'all sorts of valuable things.' This narrative of rationality applied to irrational purposes and of ingenuity cannibalizing itself is a work of clarity, which delineates mysteries. The greatest of them, to my mind, is why human beings have never learned to cherish their own species."--Naomi Bliven, "The New Yorker
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The 31st edition of the Yearbook analyses developments in 1999 in; security and conflicts; military spending and armaments; non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament.

Proportionality is intimately linked to the overarching concepts of self-defense, lawful force, and the controlled application of violence. It is one of the most visible facets of humanitarian law designed to reduce unnecessary human suffering and avoid excessive damage to property, and the natural environment. However, its application has come under renewed scrutiny and sustained controversy as a result of wars against non-state actors and from the extensive use of drones, human shields, cyber war techniques, and counterinsurgency tactics. Proportionality in International Law critically assesses the law of proportionality in normative terms combining abstract philosophical and legal analysis with highly emotive contemporary combat cases. The principle of proportionality permits actions that are logically linked to the intended goal, and thus defines the permissible boundaries for the initiation and conduct of modern wars. The case studies discussed in this book are predominantly from the perspective of those who make decisions in the midst of armed conflict, bringing analytic rigor to the debates as well as sensitivity to facts on the ground. The authors analyze modern usages of proportionality across a wide range of contexts enabling a more complete comprehension of the values that it preserves. This book contrasts the applications of proportionality in both jus ad bellum (the law and morality of resort to force) and within jus in bello (the doctrines applicable for using force in the midst of conflicts). Proportionality in International Law provides the reader with a unique interdisciplinary approach, offering practitioners and policymakers alike greater clarity over how proportionality should be understood in theory and in practice.

"From Pusan to Panmunjom" is the candid and revealing wartime memoir of the soldier who, at the age of thirty-two, became South Korea's first four-star general. It brings an unprecedented perspective to a cataclysmic war.

At the outbreak of the First World War, the United Kingdom had no aerial defence capability worthy of the name. When the war began Britain had just thirty guns to defend the entire country, with all but five of these considered of dubious value . So when raiding German aircraft finally appeared over Britain the response was negligible and totally ineffective. Of Britain s fledgling air forces, the Royal Flying Corps had accompanied the British Expeditionary Force into Europe leaving the Royal Naval Air Service to defend the country as best it could. That task was not an easy one. Airships only appeared at night and for British pilots night-flying was in its infancy. From the first raid in December 1914, aerial attacks gradually increased through 1915, culminating in highly damaging assaults on London in September and October. London, however, was not the only recipient of German bombs, with counties from Northumberland to Kent also experiencing the indiscriminate death and destruction found in this new theatre of war the Home Front. The British population was initially left exposed and largely undefended when the previously unimagined horror of bombs falling from the sky began, killing children in their beds and destroying homes. The face of war had changed forever. Those raids on London in the autumn of 1915 finally forced the government to pursue a more effective defence against air attack. The German air campaign against the United Kingdom was the first sustained strategic aerial bombing campaign in history. Yet it has become the forgotten Blitz. Those first bombing raids in 1915 claimed over 700 casualties. Relying heavily on first-hand accounts, Ian Castle tells their story, along with that of the raiders, and those who fought desperately to stop them in the opening year of Britain s forgotten Blitz.

Hybrid warfare has been an integral part of the historical landscape since the ancient world, but only recently have analysts - incorrectly - categorised these conflicts as unique. Great powers throughout history have confronted opponents who used a combination of regular and irregular forces to negate the advantage of the great powers' superior conventional military strength. As this study shows, hybrid wars are labour-intensive and long-term affairs; they are difficult struggles that defy the domestic logic of opinion polls and election cycles. Hybrid wars are also the most likely conflicts of the twenty-first century, as competitors use hybrid forces to wear down America's military capabilities in extended campaigns of exhaustion. Nine historical examples of hybrid warfare, from ancient Rome to the modern world, provide readers with context by clarifying the various aspects of conflicts and examining how great powers have dealt with them in the past.

Military conflicts, particularly land combat, possess all of the key attributes of complex adaptive systems: combat forces are composed of many nonlinearly interacting parts and are organized in a dynamic command-and-control hierarchy; local action, which often appears disordered, self-organizes into long-range order; military conflicts, by their nature, proceed far from equilibrium; military forces adapt to a changing combat environment; and there is no master "voice" that dictates the actions of every soldier (i.e., battlefield action is decentralized). Nonetheless, most modern "state of the art" military simulations ignore the self-organizing properties of combat. This book develops the proposition that combat is more like an interpenetration of two living, coevolving fluids rather than an elastic collision between two hard billiard balls. Artificial-life techniques--specifically, multiagent-based models coupled with evolutionary learning algorithms--provide a powerful new approach to understanding the fundamental processes of war. The book introduces an artificial-life model of combat called EINSTein. Recently developed at the Center for Naval Analyses, USA by the author, EINSTein is one of the first systematic attempts to simulate combat on a small-to-medium scale by using autonomous agents to model individual behaviors and personalities rather than hardware. EINSTein shows that many aspects of land combat may be understood as self-organized, emergent phenomena resulting from the dynamic web of interactions among coevolving agents. Thus, its bottom-up, synthesist approach to modeling combat stands in vivid contrast to the current top-down, reductionist approach taken byconventional models. EINSTein is the first step toward a complex-systems-theoretic toolbox for identifying, exploring, and exploiting self-organized emergent patterns of behavior on the real battlefield.

On May 14-15, 1905, in the Tsushima Straits near Japan, an entire Russian fleet was annihilated, its ships sunk, scattered, or captured by the Japanese. In the deciding battle of the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese lost only three destroyers but the Russians lost twenty-two ships and thousands of sailors. It was the first modern naval battle, employing all the new technology of destruction. The old imperial navy was woefully unprepared. The defeat at Tsushima was the last and greatest of many indignities suffered by the Russian fleet, which had traveled halfway around the world to reach the battle, dogged every mile by bad luck and misadventure. Their legendary admiral, dubbed "Mad Dog," led them on an extraordinary eighteen-thousand-mile journey from the Baltic Sea, around Europe, Africa, and Asia, to the Sea of Japan. They were burdened by the Tsar's incompetent leadership and the old, slow ships that he insisted be included to bulk up the fleet. Moreover, they were under constant fear of attack, and there were no friendly ports to supply coal, food, and fresh water. The level of self-sufficiency attained by this navy was not seen again until the Second World War. The battle of Tsushima is among the top five naval battles in history, equal in scope and drama to those of Lepanto, Trafalgar, Jutland, and Midway, yet despite its importance it has been long neglected in the West. With a novelist's eye and a historian's authority, Constantine Pleshakov tells of the Russian squadron's long, difficult journey and fast, horrible defeat.

Osprey's examination of the campaign at Nagashino in 1575. When Portuguese traders took advantage of the constant violence in Japan to sell the Japanese their first firearms, one of the quickest to take advantage of this new technology was the powerful daimyo Oda Nobunaga. In 1575 the impetuous Takeda Katsuyori laid siege to Nagashino castle, a possession of Nobunaga's ally, Tokugawa Ieyasu. An army was despatched to relieve the siege, and the two sides faced each other across the Shidarahara. The Takeda samurai were brave, loyal and renowned for their cavalry charges, but Nobunaga, counting on Katsuyori's impetuosity, had 3,000 musketeers waiting behind prepared defences for their assault. The outcome of this clash of tactics and technologies was to change the face of Japanese warfare forever.

The author explores the defense administration, with thorough criticism of the National Security Council, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the armed services as governmental organizations. His book is a substantial reinterpretation of the history of the military organization of the U.S. from 1900 to 1960. Originally published in 1961. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book conducts an in-depth analysis into the lawfulness of State-sponsored targeted killings under international human rights and humanitarian law. It also addresses the relevance of the law of inter-state force to targeted killings, and the interrelation of the various normative frameworks which may simultaneously apply to operations involving the intentional use of lethal force.
Through a comprehensive analysis of treaties, custom, and general principles of law in light of jurisprudence, doctrine, and travaux preparatoires the author demonstrates that contemporary international law provides two distinct normative paradigms which govern the use of lethal force in law enforcement and in the conduct of hostilities. Based on the resulting normative paradigms, the author shows in what circumstances targeted killings may be considered as internationally lawful. The practical relevance of the various conditions and modalities is illustrated by reference to concrete examples of targeted killing from recent State practice.
In essence the book argues that any targeted killing not directed against a legitimate military target remains subject to the law enforcement paradigm, which imposes extensive restraints on the practice. Even under the paradigm of hostilities, no person can be lawfully liquidated without further considerations. As a form of individualized or surgical warfare, the method of targeted killing requires a 'microscopic' interpretation of the law regulating the conduct of hostilities which leads to nuanced results.
The author concludes by highlighting and comparing the main areas of concern arising with regard to State-sponsored targeted killing under each normative paradigm and by placing the results of the analysis in the wider context of the rule of law.

Many books have been written about the Jacobite rebellions - the armed attempts made by the Stuarts to regain the British throne between 1689 and 1746 - and in particular about the risings of 1689, 1715, 1719 and 1745. The key battles have been described in graphic detail. Yet no previous book has given a comprehensive military account of the campaigns in their entirety - and that is the purpose of Jonathan Oates's new history. For over fifty years the Jacobites posed a serious threat to the governments of William and Mary, Queen Anne and George I and II. But they were unable to follow up their victories at Killiecrankie, Prestonpans and Falkirk, and the overwhelming defeat suffered by Bonnie Prince Charlie's army when it confronted the Duke of Cumberland's forces at Culloden in 1746 was decisive. The author uses vivid eyewitness testimony and contemporary sources, as well as the latest archaeological evidence, to trace the course of the conflict, and offers an absorbing insight into the makeup of the opposing sides, their leadership, their troops and the strategy and tactics they employed. His distinctive approach gives the reader a long perspective on a conflict which is often viewed more narrowly in terms of famous episodes and the careers of the leading men.

This study provides a picture of the US Army's performance during the Gulf War. It begins by chronicling the Army's regeneration in the two decades after Vietnam - the foundation of the Desert Storm victory. Each chapter starts with a personal combat story that puts the conflict into a human perspective. The book brings the civilian reader into battle alongside individual soldiers. It is a comprehensive account that allows individual conclusions, including accounts by Iraqi soldiers, about the largest armour battle since World War II.

The assassination of Osama bin Laden by SEAL Team 6 in May 2011 will certainly figure among the greatest achievements of US Special Forces. After nearly ten years of searching, they descended into his Pakistan compound in the middle of the night, killed him, and secreted the body back into Afghanistan. Interest in these forces had always been high, but it spiked to new levels following this success. There was a larger lesson here too. For serious jobs, the president invariably turns to the US Special Forces: the SEALs, Delta Force, the Green Berets, and the USAF's Special Tactics squad. Given that secretive grab-and-snatch operations in remote locales characterize contemporary warfare as much as traditional firefights, the Special Forces now fill a central role in American military strategy and tactics. Not surprisingly, the daring and secretive nature of these commando operations has generated a great deal of interest. The American public has an overwhelmingly favorable view of the forces, and nations around the world recognize them as the most capable fighting units: the tip of the American spear, so to speak. But how much do we know about them? What are their origins? What function do they fill in the larger military structure? Who can become a member? What do trainees have to go through? What sort of missions do Special Forces perform, and what are they expected to accomplish? Despite their importance, much of what they do remains a mystery because their operations are clandestine and the sources elusive. In The US Special Forces: What Everyone Needs to Know, eminent scholar John Prados brings his deep expertise to the subject and provides a pithy primer on the various components of America's special forces. The US military has long employed Special Forces in some form or another, but it was in the Cold War when they assumed their present form, and in Vietnam where they achieved critical mass. Interestingly, the Special Forces suffered a rapid decline in numbers after that conflict despite the fact that the United States had already identified terrorism as a growing security threat. The revival of Special Forces began under the Reagan administration. After 9/11 they experienced explosive growth, and are now integral to all US military missions. Prados traces how this happened and examines the various roles the Special Forces now play. They have taken over many functions of the regular military, a trend that Prados does not expect will end any time soon. This will be a definitive primer on the elite units in the most powerful military the world has ever known.

In this prequel to the now-classic "Makers of Modern Strategy," Victor Davis Hanson, a leading scholar of ancient military history, gathers prominent thinkers to explore key facets of warfare, strategy, and foreign policy in the Greco-Roman world. From the Persian Wars to the final defense of the Roman Empire, "Makers of Ancient Strategy" demonstrates that the military thinking and policies of the ancient Greeks and Romans remain surprisingly relevant for understanding conflict in the modern world.

The book reveals that much of the organized violence witnessed today--such as counterterrorism, urban fighting, insurgencies, preemptive war, and ethnic cleansing--has ample precedent in the classical era. The book examines the preemption and unilateralism used to instill democracy during Epaminondas's great invasion of the Peloponnesus in 369 BC, as well as the counterinsurgency and terrorism that characterized Rome's battles with insurgents such as Spartacus, Mithridates, and the Cilician pirates. The collection looks at the urban warfare that became increasingly common as more battles were fought within city walls, and follows the careful tactical strategies of statesmen as diverse as Pericles, Demosthenes, Alexander, Pyrrhus, Caesar, and Augustus. "Makers of Ancient Strategy" shows how Greco-Roman history sheds light on wars of every age. In addition to the editor, the contributors are David L. Berkey, Adrian Goldsworthy, Peter J. Heather, Tom Holland, Donald Kagan, John W. I. Lee, Susan Mattern, Barry Strauss, and Ian Worthington.

Originally published in 1896, "Small Wars" is an ambitious attempt to analyze and draw lessons from Western experience in fighting campaigns of imperial conquest. The quality of C. E. Callwell's analysis, the sweep of his knowledge, and his ability to integrate information from an impressive variety of experiences resulted in Small War's reputation as a minor classic.

For the historian, "Small Wars" remains a useful and vital analysis of irregular warfare experiences ranging from Hoche's suppression of the Vendee revolt during the French Revolution, to the British wars against semi-organized armies of Marathas and Sikhs in mid-nineteenth-century India, to the Boer War of 1899-1902.

The military specialist discovers in Callwell lessons applicable to what today is called "low-intensity conflict." his message is clear, and it is relevant to current debates about conflicts as diverse as those in Bosnia, Somalia, and Vietnam. Technological superiority is an important, but seldom critical, ingredient in the success of low-intensity operations. An ability to adapt to terrain and climate, to match the enemy in mobility and inventiveness, to collect intelligence, and above all the capacity to "seize what the enemy prizes most," will determine success or failure. This reprint adds vital historical dimension to the growing literature on unconventional conflict.

This unique and penetrating book surveys 100 years of military inefficiency from the Crimean War, through the Boer conflict, to the disasterous campaigns of the First World War and the calamities of the Second. It examines the social psychology of military organizations, provides case studies of individual commanders and identifies an alarming pattern in the causes of military disaster. 'An absorbing, perceptive and often very funny study in human frailty.... stimulating and almost invariably provocative.' Lord Chalfont, LISTENER

Comparison between The Full Edition of Iron Fist From The Sea and The Abridged Edition of Iron Fist From The Sea. A Number of the First Chapters cut in the abridged edition, so less background information. Certain Appendices have been Cut from the Abridged Edition. A Number of Military Operations have been cut. The Full Edition provides the whole operational history, whereas the abridged edition is lacking in background and much less detail on specific operations. This seminal work documents the clandestine seaborne operations undertaken by South Africa's 4 Reconnaissance Commando Regiment. It breathtakingly reveals the versatility and effectiveness of this elite unit which worked with a range of other South African and Rhodesian forces, including the Rhodesian SAS, to engage in a range of raiding and war fighting activities. These operations saw the clandestine reconnaissance of harbours, the sinking of enemy shipping and the destruction of shore installations in Angola and Mozambique. Just some of the tasks undertaken by this extraordinary maritime capability which totalled no more than 45 operators, both black and white! With unparalleled access to previously secret material, the authors, both of whom worked to develop 4 Recce's operating capabilities, trace the origins of the Regiment back to the 1970's when the South African's determined the need for a maritime force projection capability. They relate how maritime doctrine was developed within South Africa's wider Special Forces capability and how joint operational approaches were configured with the South African Navy. This saw the development of a range of swimmer, reconnaissance, diving and boat operator training courses, along with the design of specialist raiding craft and amphibious assault platforms, which were originated to operate from the Navy's existing shipping and submarines. All of which demonstrated the immense potential of this newly emergent force and the resourcefulness of its individual operators. Required to successfully complete a gruelling selection process, the operators of 4 Recce were relentlessly tested to prove their physical and mental mettle, not to mention their leadership skills and initiative. Steyn and Soederlund's chronological analysis of the operations undertaken by 4 Recce and the South African Navy is stunning to behold. They impartially detail the secret and specialised actions which saw both success and failure. From Cabinda on the West Coast to Tanzania on the East, 4 Recce, and whose existence and capability was largely kept secret even within the South African Defence Force, conducted numerous clandestine raids. They attacked shipping and strategic targets such as oil facilities, transport infrastructure and even ANC offices. And sometimes the raids did go wrong, spectacularly so in one instance when two operators were killed and Captain Wynand Du Toit was captured. He was later paraded in front of the world's media, much to the embarrassment of the South African government. This is a fascinating work and one that will enthral anyone with an interest in Special Forces operations. Profusely illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs, it stands as a testament to the author's endeavours as, respectively, the former Operations Commander of 4 Recce and the former Commander Task Group of the SA Navy - as well as the incredible operators of 4 Recce.

If states are not to go to war, what should they do instead? In The Alternatives to War, James Pattison considers the case for the alternatives to military action to address mass atrocities and aggression. The volume examines the normative issues raised by measures ranging from comprehensive economic sanctions, diplomacy, and positive incentives, to criminal prosecutions, nonviolent resistance, accepting refugees, and arming rebels. For instance, given the indiscriminateness of many sanctions regimes, are sanctions any better than war? Should states avoid 'megaphone diplomacy' and adopt more subtle measures? What, if anything, can nonviolent methods such as civilian defence and civilian peacekeeping do in the face of a ruthless opponent? Is it a serious concern that positive incentives can appear to reward aggressors? Overall, Pattison provides a comprehensive account of the ethics of the alternatives to war. In doing so, he argues that the case for war is weaker and the case for many of the alternatives is stronger than commonly thought. The upshot is that, when reacting to mass atrocities and aggression, states are generally required to pursue the alternatives to war rather than military action. The volume concludes that this has significant implications for pacifism, just war theory, and the responsibility to protect doctrine.

The author explores the defense administration, with thorough criticism of the National Security Council, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the armed services as governmental organizations. His book is a substantial reinterpretation of the history of the military organization of the U.S. from 1900 to 1960. Originally published in 1961. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This is the story of 2 Group RAF during World War II. Much of it is told by the men who flew the Blenheim, Boston, Mitchell and Mosquito aircraft that carried out many daring daylight and night-time raids on vitally important targets in Nazi-occupied Europe and Germany. These were not the famous 1,000 bomber raids that hit the wartime headlines, but low-level, fast-moving surprise attacks flown by small formations of fleet-footed and skilfully piloted twin-engine light bombers. Their targets were usually difficult to locate and heavily defended because of their strategic importance to the enemy. From the very start of the war, the men and machines of 2 Group were at the forefront of the RAF's offensive. On 3 September 1939, the day war broke out, a Blenheim from 2 Group carried out the first British operational sortie to cross the German frontier in the Second World War. The following day saw the Group's Blenheims make the first British bombing attack of the war. No.2 Group also played a vital part in the invasion of Europe both before and after D-Day. Often, its crews would fly at wave-top height across the English Channel or North Sea to avoid detection and then hedge-hop deep into enemy territory to deliver their precision attack. Enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire were a constant risk. This is a remarkable story of skill and bravery by a little-known branch of the RAF.

Through the use of recently released Chinese documents, conversations with People's Republic of China scholars, and in-depth interviews with people who were present at key decision-making meetings, this book aims to discover China and the USSR's roles in the outbreak of the Korean conflict.